Handspun Friday - Denim

Me and my big mouth! Come what may, of course! While reassembling my bed, a screw broke inside the wood panel, and it was a vital one, to keep the bed upright. Of course there was no time to get some screws to do emergency surgery on the bed, because of other appointments. It has to wait until later today. I've got to sleep in our guest room. My back did not appreciate it at all. The pups were confused too, strange room new smells. Before we settled in, they kept running over to my bedroom door.

***
I've spun this fiber back in July. The finished yarn was one of the ones from my last shop update. I REALLY love how this turned out.
The fiber was once again dyed by FatCatKnit's. Ginny is one of my favorite dyers.



This fiber turned into this:


and this:


It's 8oz of Falkland, 2-ply yarn, worsted weight, 2 skeins with a total of 247yds.



You can still grab it here.
***
I've also finished my handspun cowl. The free pattern is by Ami Madison.



I've uses my SAG handspun, superwash BFL. I used 4mm needles, and it took me no time at all to finish it.

I've cast on 110 stitches for the cowl, did three garter ridges, instead of the first YO row, since it was folding up like crazy. I would do even more garter ridges next time. Then I decreased to 100 stitches for the main part, and increased again to 110 stitches for the top, ending with garter ridges.

I had a little left over yarn:

The little skein is nestled in natural white Merino fiber.

Movers

People, I'm pooped!
Yesterday the cleaners where here, and did their job, not well, I might add. Didn't much matter though, because today the movers were here and brought in the (dusted off) furniture from the garage. Now I have to clean EVERYTHING! Dusting isn't enough. But come what may, I'm going to be sleeping in my bed, in my bedroom tonight.
Got to go.

Surprise!

Yesterday morning was not a good day. I was waiting for the workers to show up, and they didn't. I was close to explode. I was cussing, and yelling, throwing flames from my mouth, steam coming from my ears, and basically having a big tendrum. The boys were hiding, and my son was suddenly standing in front of me with chocolate in hand, outstretched, opened. Well, yeah, it's THAT time of month too. That made me laugh, and the steam coming from my ears subsided. They showed up eventually at around 11:30AM.
I don't know what they did do, but after 3PM it went silent upstairs, they had left. The front door was still open, their vacuum was plugged in, I assumed they would be back. Just in case, I closed the door, but did not lock it.
My son got a phone call from one of the workers. He came over to me, and asked how I was doing, and held the left over chocolate from that morning in his hands. At first I was confused, until it dawned on me, that he's the bringer of bad news, which of course made me laugh again.
So the guys couldn't figure out how to install the hood! They said the instructions only came in Dutch (how would THEY know, I thought ungraciously), which is odd, since the model came from Italy. They told him they had to figure it out before they could proceed.
They've put in the oven, and the microwave, the fridge has been in it's place for some time now. The dishwasher is still in the garage. The electrical plugs are still hanging out from their sockets, and the replacement cabinet doors, and one replacement drawer are still not here yet. The doorbell, which is supposed to play DING-DONG, only manages to BZZZZ-Ding, and the light switch for the living room is still not changed around.
But everything else is done. The cleaning crew arrives tomorrow. My son's new bed will be delivered some time tomorrow too. Movers have been hired for Thursday, to get the heavy furniture out from the garage into the house again.
Everything will be fine but the kitchen. Oh well. I've gotten used to eating microwavable food, but I sure hope that I'll be able to cook a feast for my Birthday in November, in my new kitchen. But who knows?
***
So, now we come to the surprise! DS brought home the mail, and there was a package for me, which I didn't order! Kelly has sent me this lovely package:


Wonderful Briggs & Little sportweight yarn for mittens, a lovely doggy card, two toys for the pups, and two curlywurly's, most delicious candy EVER (directly from Ireland, she says). Yummy! Thank you so much Kelly! You made my day!



Really? I can have it? (no little brown Rumpelstilzchen around to take it away from me?)


I did NOT cut off his hears in the pictures, but the mosaic maker did.


Rumpelstilzchen shaking it! He's had a lot of fun, until he started to chew it to pieces. To give Happy a chance to play with the toys too, Denny had to spend some time in the crate.

***
It's 9AM, the workers are not here yet. I need lots, and lots of chocolate!!!
***

shop update

I'm having a shop update later today.

Saturday

As I mentioned we planned on getting out and about on Saturday, which we did. We slept in a little, and after breakfast, we packed the dogs into the car, and off we drove. No specific plans, just driving up North.
It was clear from the start, that we were about one week too late, to enjoy the beautiful Fall foliage. At least the weather was nice, and sunny. I love getting close to bodies of water if possible. Somehow we ended up in Keswick, Cook's Bay, Lake Simcoe. Didn't think it was so close, and Keswick is a bigger town then I thought.
It's hard to find spots where you can actually get close to the Lake, any Lake for that matter, but we found one.


Being in places like that makes me always happy.







On our way back we drove by Sharon Temple. Not the best shot of it, but the best shot would have been right from an intersection, and that was not going to happen. Too bad though, because it IS a lovely building. I've known about this Temple for years, but we never came close to were it is. Now I know. (if you follow the link you'll get to see the Temple in all it's glory, and its history is interesting too)



What's interesting in the next picture is the long, straight road, of which we have many around here. (Leslie street, heading South)


It was really good to get away from home, even only for a few hours. It was good that we did it, when we did it too, because in the evening it started raining, and it hasn't stopped since.
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Handspun Friday - Greens

Yesterday was a rainy, cold day. I refuse to turn on the heating for the whole house, when we just live in the basement. It's 14C down here, and my fingers, and toes are cold. I'm wearing my Maia fingerless mittens, and wool socks of course, and a jacket, and have some tea, but it's not enough. My nose is still cold, and I believe it's going to be a runny nose soon. Well, actually I don't have my tea anymore. I spilled it all over my desk, what fun. My fingers are just to clumsy when cold. I'm a little pissed off, grumpy whatever you call it. Renovations are still not done yet. There was an unpleasant delay because of the back splash tiles I've chosen. They are designer tiles coming from California. They are glass mosaic, and our guy had never used those before. I agree, they are almost paper thin, and hard to work with, but OH COME ON! Naturally it costs extra to get them done. Grout is still missing, but should be done today. Since they are way behind, I had to reschedule the cleaners, who were going to help me clean the whole house. I was about to hire some help with the furniture moving, but don't know exactly WHEN they should be coming either. The renos were scheduled to be done mid September. It's going to be close to the end of October, hopefully? We didn't expect to need warm clothes, so we packed everything away, and of course the boxes are the ones way in the back of storage, with tons of other stuff in front of them. I'm not even going to try to get to them.
ANYWAY ....

I have been spinning, so here's something to show you:

This was Spinning Awesome Good! or SAG for short Fiber club colorway "Intuition". It's 4oz BFL, 2-ply, worsted weight, 149yds. It's up for grabs in my shop.




This is also SAG fiber, but I won this in the monthly draw, back in August. I asked Shelby for something green, with red spots, and she delivered this beautiful fiber! It's superwash BFL, 4oz, 2-ply, 177yds. This one's for myself. I've cast on an easy cowl, but had to frog it. The edge was curling in something fierce. I didn't think blocking would do the trick, so I ripped it out, and started over.


See how the edge folds in? Well I wasn't too far into the project anyway, but still kept going even though I had my doubts.
***
We are going to go on a day trip with the pups sometime this weekend, as long as the weather is not too bad. Need to get out of this place and see something else for a change, before I go stir crazy.
***

Middle of the week!

With the fence up, I have to go to the other side of the pool to play fetch with the pups. I don't trust myself to be able to throw it over, usually no problem, but I don't want anything to fall inside the fenced in area by accident, for the pups to get any ideas.

We are having quite a bit of fun. Denny, with zero fetching instinct in his body, can be made to go fetch his bone for about five times, before he flips me the bird. No really. I really have to build him up, before I throw the bone, so that he goes after it, but after said five times, he takes it away, lys down somewhere outside my reach, and gives me the look that says, next time you throw that freaking bone, you get it yourself. And he's just that pup using that kind of language!

Happy however loves to fetch, but not like Biko did, not even close. She never had enough of fetching. He brings back the ball about ten times, before he goes to ly down in a cool spot (or jumps into the pool if available). It used to worry me, and we asked the Vet if his heart is alright, which it is. He just doesn't have the stamina, but he's a great sprinter.

my pretty boy



Denny the digger. We wonder what breeds are in him, not just Australian Cattle dog, and Shepherd, but I'm sure there's some Terrier in him as well. We think he's also got monkey, muskrat, goat, dove, fish otter, crocodile (he's got the death roll thing down pat), and squirrel in him. Plus he would make Houdini proud, the way he's escaping from anywhere except the locked crate.

The pictures were taken before we closed the pool. Here he's wet, straight out of the pool, getting breaded with dirt.
***
After all that extremely colorful fiber I've spun lately, I needed something more natural. I've got some 200g Massam (or Masham) fiber from Shunklies. Never heard of it before that, so I wanted to give it a try.

Masham

The Masham, pronounced massam, is a cross of Teeswater or Wensleydale ram with Dalesbred or Swaledale ewes. The fleece is very long and lustrous, and the breed is found mainly in the north of England. The fleece is suited to combing due to its length, and is used in specialty products due to its limited availability. The fineness varies from approx. 38 - 44 microns and length approx. 150-380mm.

It was easy to spin, even though it had lots of veggy matter, and some guard hair in it. I tried to pick it out as I went. It turned out a little lumpy, pumpy, but I like rustic yarn. I'm not sure if I should put natural spun fiber in my shop in the future. Would there be any interest?

I've got 2 skeins from the 200g I had. A total of 200yds. I think it's light worsted weight yarn (guesstimate) While spinning it did not smell of anything, but when I put the skeins into the bath, there was brown water, and it smelled of barn, not of sheep. It really IS rustic, but it feels drapey, and has some luster.
I'm also working on some Shetland mix fiber, very interesting as far as I can tell. More about that when it's done.
***

Fenced in!

After calling several fence companies, and nobody showing any interest in providing the service we needed, we asked our neighbor, who (his company) did our deck this Spring, and the garden, if he was willing to built a fence around the pool, as well as repairing one of the gates. Well, he was, and in no time at all, he and his buddy had the fence up. He laughed and said, that nobody had ever asked him before, to do this kind of fencing in, for this particular reason.

Not pretty, but very much necessary. If the pups were not such dumb asses, we would not need that. We were all VERY happy to be in the garden again, enjoying wonderful Fall weather. Fun was had by all! After not being able to run around by themselves, just walking on leash, first time out they were pooped after ten minutes. Back inside, they slept for an hour, without stirring.

I love this time of year, especially when it's sunny, windy, and not too cold yet. It's also good weather for drying yarn! I've been spinning a lot the past few days, but no knitting whatsoever. There are several projects I would like to knit, I have the yarn for it, but not handy. I don't feel like knitting simple socks. I finished my faceted ribs socks though and I LOVE them.


pattern: Faceted Rib Socks by Charlene Schurch/Beth Parrott from "The little box of Socks"
yarn: Wandering Cat Yarns, House Cat, sw merino, 400yds, colorway: Siamese Dream
start-finish: September 27- October 10

As I said before, I tried several different patterns before I settled on these socks. I think it's a great pattern for handpainted yarns. I really love them. They are soft, and thick, because of the slip stitch pattern. I could have made the leg a little longer, but I was afraid of running out of yarn, so I'd rather made it shorter. I sure hope they will last a while, being merino socks and all.


***
If you are a member of Spinning Awesome Good group on ravelry, you probably already know, that it's Shelby's birthday today. She's celebrating with the group members, by having 20% off in her Etsy shop. For details go to the group and read up.
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Valerie of Wandering Cat Yarns has bought some of my handspun yarn, received it on Friday, and already transformed one skein into this lovely beret! How cool is that?
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Last Friday was duct cleaning day. Talk about invasion of privacy! I'm glad it's done though, but I'm really getting sick of having strangers in the house.

Well, that's it for today.
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Handspun Friday - Lumber Jack

Hey, thanks everybody for your kind words about our newly renovated home! :o) Every day we are getting closer to the finish line.

Today I have some FatCatKnits Falkland in the colorway "Lumber Jack" to show you.
Here's the fiber:

And this is what I did with it:

I had 8oz of lovely Falkland in the colorway "Lumber Jack" a progression dyed fiber, to make gradiated yarn.
It's two skeins, 2-plied yarn, with a total of 698yds. I think it's about DK weight yarn. I need to find my WPI measuring tool.
This is also going up in my shop for your knitting pleasure.
***
We are having duct cleaners here today. Yesterday the plumber came and connected the faucets in the powder room, and in the kitchen! I'm very excited, everything looks great. The counter top is installed too. Coming Monday they'll put up the back splash tiles, and the hood. After that we just have to wait for the replacement cabinet doors (the ones which were scratched at some point, and the one cabinet, which was not built the way we ordered it).
***
I wish you all a wonderful Fall colored weekend!
***

Before and After - inside

Well, here are promised photos of some of our rooms after renovations. The kitchen and powder room are not done yet. So photos of those I'll show at a later point.
So lets start: This was my daughters room, since she'll only be home for short periods to visit, this room will be my sons room, in addition to his own room. Happy was following me around, while I took pictures. Little Denny had to stay in his crate, because of all the mischief he's doing, and I wanted to concentrate on taking pictures, and not chasing him around. Happy had a lot to sniff.


The next room was at one point the guest room, an office after that, and will be a guest room again. There's a piano in it. All the small upstairs bedrooms look the same now. With a light shade of grey on the walls, the caramel wooden floors. We've installed the same lamps in every room as well.


The laundry room. The old runner was sticking to the floor, when we removed everything, That's the black stuff on the ugly floor. The door leads to the garage. In the after picture the powder room door is leaning against the wall, since it's still not done. Here we have the same tile floor as in the hall and in the kitchen. The walls have a different shade of grey. The old cabinets got new paint too, and new handles, and a new sink in the corner (not visible in the photo). I like it much better now


I love my bedroom. I did the walls some years ago myself, and I left it, since I still like it. There are 200 golden stars there! We removed the mirrowed "sliding" doors (didn't do much sliding anymore, they were the worst idea somebody could have EVER). All the shelves behind them were removed. I got new cabinets with deep drawers and many shelves. I LOVE it! I didnt' want it the full length of the room, so I have a little bit more space. They had to match the short section of the wall to be painted red, and I think they did a great job. My cross ramp machine is not in it's final place yet. That sucker is heavy, and I want to move it only one more time. The wooden caramel colored floor doesn't go so well with my walls here, but I don't care. It looks good throughout the rest of the house.


The stairs were in really bad shape. The entrance tile floor was so ugly, and part of the hall was carpet flooring, which is totally unpractical. Now I love it, the stairs look awesome, and the hall too, and it will be so much easier to clean! The pups have no problem going upstairs, but are cautious coming down, since it's more slippery.


This was my office before, wiht all walls covered with book shelves, the crates were stuffed in here as well. There was only one light, the one on my desk, plus the doors to the deck, but the blinds were always closed, since the sun was blinding me, when I was sitting at the desk. Now it will be our dining room, since we wont have space to sit in the kitchen. We broke through an opening to the kitchen. We installed pot lights, and I really love this room. Even without furniture it feels cozy. The green wall color I choose for this room, the kitchen and the living room looks different, depending on the light. I really LOVE it!


The living room was also my craft room, and will be my office now as well. We closed a small door which led to the kitchen. I can't wait to get this room back together again! This room also had only one hanging lamp, which we removed and installed a bar of lights, which you can point in any direction. I will have light on the desk again, plus standing lamps. At first we wanted to install pot lights also, but since it's a popcorn ceiling, they would have had to remove the whole ceiling, and I didn't want to do that. There was a hole in the ceiling (second photo) from water damage from the bathroom above. It's now covered nicely, so that we can get to the pipes again if need be, and not cut another hole into the ceiling.



Well, that's it! I like how it turned out. Now we just have to get the kitchen done. Meanwhile everything will be cleaned, on Friday duct cleaners will do their job, and after that, I'll hire me some strong men to bring in the furniture. It's a little sad to have to put the old furniture back in, but not a big deal.
***

Turkey Monday!

Don't be fooled by the innocent look on their faces!


I think these two are plotting against me - again! This time I think I know what it's all about too. Next year, they think they'll take over Thanksgiving dinner in this household, because lets face it, having lamb/venison burgers, and grilled chicken just doesn't cut it, for a Thanksgiving dinner! Never mind, that we only had a BBQ for cooking, and that's broken down too now. Can you believe the BBQ we bought 2 month ago, is kaputt?!!! Two of the knobs melted, and it's not safe to use it anymore. Crap!
O.K. back to those two. I think they look a little concerned too. Might be, because my knees are still wobbly. You want to know why?
Let me tell you, I really think we are cursed with two very smart pups. Cursed yes, I'd rather have two dummy dogs around. But - for some reason they wont get it into their heads, that the POOL IS CLOSED for this season. It's OVER guys! NO more swimming in the pool, even without water, NO MORE PLEASE!
See, they refuse to believe me when I say, get away from the pool, it's CLOSED. So they jump in anyway! Which of course gives me an almost heart attack twice a day. Not healthy for me, or them. I can't take it anymore! So we'll have to install a fence around it, which hopefully will keep them out until the day we open the pool again, next year.

It was rather nice today, we could sit outside, and it was warm, and sunny. This spider watched us from a corner . It's a common garden spider, I think. It's beautiful, but I'm glad it knows to keep outside, or else!


I wonder if the guys stop plotting, if I offer them some of my pumpkin pie? I'm not giving them my chocolate cake! (I know chocolate is not good for them, it is for me though).
I think I'll put together some BEFORE and AFTER photos from our reno, sans the kitchen for now. If you wanna see them, come back later this week! Bye for now!
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Handspun Friday - Tomato Salad

Unbelievable how fast this week flew by. Today we've got Tomato Salad on the menu. This lovely fiber was dyed by FatCatKnits. I've seen this colorway spun up on FatCatKnits forum, and fell in love with it. I like fiber, which can be spun into gradiating yarns, like this one.




specifics:
fiber: Falkland, 4oz
yarn: navajo plied, 2 skeins, total of 250yds, I think it's DK weight yarn

I loved spinning this fiber, and how the yarn turned out. I hope you like it too, because you can find it here in my shop. One more thing about the shop. I know that shipping costs seem high, but we refund excess shipping costs, once we know what the actual costs are.
***
This week I had no time to spin, because I had to crank out a pair of socks as a birthday present.

My fifth pair of burning stripes socks. I had no time to block them. They are not the most prettiest socks ever, but mashine washable, and warm. Made with Patons Kroy FX, I used 2.75mm needles, which made it go real fast. I started October 2 and finished October 5. This used to be a normal pace for knitting a pair of socks, but it was hard work to get them done. I still have a little SSS going on. Anyway. I'm back knitting the second sock of my faceted rib socks. They look gorgeous, and I can't wait for them to be done, and on my feet!

***
After some bad vibes with the reno guys (not the actual workers, they are great!), we had the head honcho over yesterday, and we walked through the house, and made a list of what still has to be done. It was all just little things, and we worked out the big things in the kitchen. Phew!
This means, they will finish the railing today. Then we have a break until next week Thursday, when they will finally install the counter top, and the back splash tiles. The appliances will be installed, except for the oven and microwave. A couple of the cabinet doors were scratched, which will be replaced. The replacement doors, and the cabinet where the oven, and the microwave will be (this one turned out totally wrong), will take another couple of weeks or three to arrive.
Meanwhile we'll have to get a duct cleaning crew in, and everything can get cleaned up nicely. I guess we'll be moving furniture and stuff back in, little by little. We probably need to hire movers, since my son threw his back out by lifting and dragging most of the stuff, when we cleared out the house, and has now a bad back, which a nice chiropractor is trying to bend back into shape.
Alright, that's it for today. Oh, yeah, the pool is going to be closed today as well. The pups were still swimming with pleasure up until yesterday, and will be very disappointed next time they are out in the back yard.
Have a nice weekend everyone!
***

It's getting there!

Just a quick Hello! Today, the renovations have come suddenly to a (almost) finish! The kitchen will be a while yet, because there are some problems. Problems which make me mad thinking about them. Can you say, measure twice, cut once??? Anyway, I don't want to focus on the bad right now. The upstairs bedrooms are DONE! The hall is done, love the tiles. The dining room is done, the laundry room is done. My living/craft room is done also! Yeah! The powder room, not so much, but hey. Pictures coming soon.

You can see part of the hall here. The pups waiting at the basement door, REALLY wanting to come upstairs already.


Why wont you let us come upstairs yet? - Because I don't want you two to scratch my new floors, and my new doors. But -

Well, I let them come up, and after a little sliding across the wooden floors, Denny ran upstairs, and wanted to get into his old bedroom AT ONCE - scratch, scratch, scratch.
Happy was interested in the dining room, the kitchen, and every other nook and cranny. Well, back downstairs with you two!

I'm quite excited that now we actually can start thinking of moving back upstairs soon!
***
I was sick this last Sunday, a really bad bug, which kept me in bed, after I took care of the pups, I didn't want to, but had to crawl back into bed. Monday was good, but today the headache was back, but no fever. Good.
I've knit the first of my faceted rib socks, but had to do a last minute marathon knitting, for a birthday gift. A pair of socks, which have to be done by tomorrow. I'm all ready to kitchener the toes shut. Good!
It's raining, and it's dark, but my mood is light!
***

Handspun Friday - Heirloom

It's still so special to me, to be in Hello Yarn Fiber Club, that I'm kind of a hoarder of the club fiber. But once in a while, I get something, I have to spin right away. Heirloom was such a colorway. I think it's my favorite colorway from this last six month of fiber clubs. When I unpacked it, I said -WOW- out loud. Then I saw that it was Wensleydale fiber, which made me think "too bad", but the nice colors made me get over it quickly.
Wensleydale has a wonderful sheen to it, and it's crimpy, and hairy, but it makes the most wonderful singles spun yarns! I have not made many single spun yarns so far, but this was crying out to be such a yarn.
I plucked the fiber into pieces, arranged them into gradiating color sequence, and started to spin. What FUN that was!



Heirloom is 4oz, 526yds of singles Wensleydale yarn. I'm going to put it in my shop if somebody would be interested. I thought it would make a lovely shawlette.
***
The shop is now open for viewing what's on offer so far, but I'll launch it on Saturday to open it up for buyers. The prizes are in Canadian $$$. I still have to figure out how the real shipping costs will work out. I'll refund if actual shipping costs are lower (if it's more than 1 $).
***
Meanwhile, it's never good for me to bring home books to read, because once I start reading, I can't stop, and nothing else gets done!
I spilled some tea on my sock in progress, but I reacted fast, and tea didn't get a chance to soak in! I think I'm cursed with my tea drinking. Either Denny finds my half empty mug, and sticks his greedy tongue in it, or I spill it myself. Anyway, I better get back to my sock. It's coming along nicely, but slip stitch patterns are a bit slow.
***
The renos? I wish they were done. Right now they are getting ready (with a stabler) to prepare the dining room floor to put the wooden floor in (nail gun later). It's right above my head, when I sit at my computer. They worked hard all week, but there is still so much to do. Sigh. A good thing about the renos taking longer then expected is, that I'm getting really good working the BBQ! Plus, there's hundreds of ways to make couscous salads. Who needs a real kitchen, when you have an electric water kettle?!
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